Architect and acoustician Cyril M. Harris, Columbia University, gave the Dickinson-Kayden Lecture, "Acoustics, Architecture, and Music." Harris collaborated with the Danish engineer Vilhelm Jordan on the Metropolitan Opera (1966), and was at work on the design for the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.

Mildred Bernstein Kayden ’42 established the fund in 1966 in honor of the late Professor Emeritus of Music George Sherman Dickinson.